


we’re not anything like we used to be

by schuylerhamilton



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Coffee, Conversations, F/M, Future Fic, Light Angst, diner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24722491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schuylerhamilton/pseuds/schuylerhamilton
Summary: February 20th, 2038. In a tiny, nondescript diner, twenty years after they won Olympic gold on the twentieth day of the second month of the twentieth year of their partnership, Tessa and Scott meet up again.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	we’re not anything like we used to be

**_it’s not easy to know_ **

**_i’m not anything like i used to be_ **

**_although it’s true_ **

_**i was never attention’s sweet center** _

* * *

_“Sometimes I’ll just wonder, like, if we’ll be 60 and meet up at a diner somewhere and just look across — over coffee — and think… there was a time when I knew every thought that went through your mind and I could read you like a book. And I wonder how that will evolve and change. You know?”_ —Tessa Virtue, **_Her Mark_** podcast

* * *

**february 20th, 2038**

She expected the sky to be sunny, with big, fluffy clouds that looked like cotton candy, but instead, it was partly cloudy. The air was cold as she hurried to her car, coat wrapped around her body like armor to protect her from the chill of winter. The door slammed shut, and she exhaled, and the cold air caused her breath to momentarily billow in front of her face, before evaporating. She fumbled with the seatbelt, buckling it in with a satisfying _click_ , and checked her phone.

 _Meet me here at 8am._ The text read, and there was a link attached. She stared at it briefly before jamming her phone into her pocket and starting the engine. When she’d received the text last night, she didn’t really know what to do. After their retirement, she’d come to the slow realization that they were actually quite different off the ice, and didn’t have many shared interests besides skating. They’d hardly ever seen each other in person, and usually just resorted to FaceTime calls and texts. She’d stared at it, contemplating her options. She could’ve just told him _No_ , or made up a lame excuse like _I’m busy_ , but she knew he’d see right through it. Or at least she hoped he would. Twenty years ago, he would’ve known she was lying. But now? Well, now, she wasn’t so sure.

Had he changed?

Had their relationship changed? Could they even call it a _relationship_? It had been nearly twenty two years since she’d been in anything _close_ to a romantic relationship with him, and even then, it was more like very close friends with extreme benefits. And after their retirement… well, they could not longer be considered a _partnership_ , could they?

Were they just a _thing_? The term _friends_ seemed too casual, too simple for them. She didn’t know what they were. They were just two people whose lives happened to be so complex, so interconnected, that it was impossible to put a name to their relationship.

Yes, they were just a _thing_ , she decided. Two people who were decidedly more than friends, but less than lovers.

Her car was humming softly as she drove down the road, past the city and into the outskirts. The buildings were soon replaced by trees, and the smooth concrete was replaced by cracked, old roads. She wondered what compelled him to find this place. They were hardly recognized anymore, thankfully, but maybe he thought that they still could be, if they were together.

Maybe he hadn’t changed as much as she thought he had, if he was still wary of being recognized or approached. She knew he wasn’t fond of social media much anymore, and wanted to remain private. She could relate to that. After spending so much of her life in the public eye, and having a sudden boom in popularity twenty years ago, her affection for social media and the public had quickly waned.

Hm. Maybe they did have more in common than she thought.

The snow that still caked the roads made her slow down slightly as she continued on her journey. Years of braving these winter weather conditions should have made her more used to them, but oddly enough, she still wasn’t. Driving in the snow was a nightmare.

Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as she spotted a sign ahead that was advertising a small, independent diner. Ah. That was the place.

She let her thoughts drift back to him as she drew closer to their meeting place. She couldn’t believe that she was nervous, almost. She’d spent so much of her life around him, she knew better than to be nervous. But… the thought of sitting there, with nothing to say but empty, casual sentences, made her heart seize up. Hopefully, this meeting of theirs wouldn’t be as bad as she was making it out to be.

They’d have something to talk about, wouldn’t they? They always did.

She remembered their late night conversations in hotel rooms before competitions, the words they whispered before they took the ice, their long, seemingly endless car drives or plane rides with nothing to do but talk, the therapy sessions, the interviews… Sometimes, it seemed to her like the only thing they did besides skate was _talk_.

They’d talked then, and they’d talk now, and hopefully, it would be no different from before. She knew that that was wishful thinking, though, because things _were_ different, _so_ different than they’d been twenty years ago, and twenty years before that.

She swallowed quickly as she tried to remember their conversation on this day twenty years earlier, in an entirely different country, before what was undoubtedly the most important skate of their lives.

_No matter what happens, I’m proud of you, you know that?_

_Yes._

_Good. Let’s go kick butt out there, ok?_

She smiled slightly at the memory. He was always so competitive, so eager to please and to win, that when he got what he wanted, he wouldn’t stop celebrating. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, she knew.

She recalled the moments after their final competitive skate, when he’d lifted her up into what she’d thought would be a bone-crushing hug, and whispered words of love and joy and excitement into her ear between sobs and laughs.

She missed hearing that laugh.

She pulled into a parking space outside of the tiny diner, taking note of the fact that there was only one other car in the lot, which was undeniably his, since it was 8:05 AM. She had never been an early riser, and was never exactly on time.

Slamming her car door shut, she made her way to the door. The bell tinkled as she stepped in, announcing her presence to both the waitress behind the counter and the one man sitting in a booth near the back corner, who looked up with his big, brown eyes. A old pop song played in the background over a tinny radio.

“Tessa Virtue,” Scott Moir announced, standing up and exiting the booth. He welcomed her to the booth, doing a weirdly prince-like bow and ushering her onto the forest green, plastic-like seat. Tessa smiled slightly as Scott sat down and looked her over for a second.

“Eyes still gorgeous, gorgeous green, hair… eh, it’s a little bit gray—“

“Hey!” Tessa interjected, but she was already giggling at his attempt at humor. It was true, though. At 49 years old, her hair _was_ a little gray, as was his. Scott’s once dark brown hair was now speckled with gray,

“—no Olympic medals in sight, because I don’t think that’s an acceptable currency here…” He raised one eyebrow slightly, before dropping the act and placing his hands on the table. “I ordered coffee for the two of us, if that’s okay with you?”

She nodded, suddenly unsure of what to say. He must’ve noticed, because he raised his eyebrows and commented, “Hey, it’s me, T.”

Tessa smiled softly, and replied, “I know.”

“Hard to believe it’s been twenty years, eh?”

She nodded, eyes widening slightly. “Yes, it is.”

“Think we could still do some of those lifts?” He asked, and she snorted.

“God, no.” She shook her head, and he laughed. They were interrupted by the waitress, who brought the coffees.

They both took a sip out of their respective cups, before putting them down. Scott sighed, staring at the coffee, before gently pushing it out of the way. She eyed him carefully, knowing that he was most likely about to change the topic of conversation.

“So,” He asked slowly, “What exactly have you been up to?”

He stared at her, his brown eyes meeting her green ones, and if Tessa didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought that she had time-traveled back to twenty years ago. One thing hadn’t changed over the past two decades: he still looked at her with so much love, like she was the only person in the room and he wanted to focus all of his attention onto her. Which, in this case, she thought, they _were_ pretty much the only people in the room. Scott’s active listening skills were still as strong as ever.

She stared back at him, unsure of where to begin. She’d never gotten married, weirdly enough, but had had her fair share of boyfriends in the past two decades. She lived mainly in Toronto now, but occasionally came back to London every few weeks, or for holidays or birthdays. Sometimes, she went to a rink and skated. Nobody really recognized her, not if she was alone. It was just her, whatever cheesy music was playing over the radio, and the sound of the blade against the ice.

“Well,” She started, choosing to look at the coffee in her cup instead of him, “I’m a dance teacher.”

Scott’s eyes widened slightly and his mouth formed into a round _o_ shape, before he replied, “Oh. Wow. That’s… that’s great, Tess.”

Her eyes flicked back up to his at the mention of that familiar nickname, and she smiled.

“Yeah, it is. I really like it. I mostly work with kids and teenagers.” She said, stopping herself before she could add on _“and a few little boys who remind me of you, from forty years ago.”_ It wouldn’t be a lie. The small group of boys in a few of her classes were rowdy, choosing more to see how much they could impress the girls rather than actually work on improving their own dancing skills.

Tessa cleared her throat, stirred her coffee with a spoon, and looked back up at him. “So, um, what have you been doing?”

Scott tapped his fingers against the table as he replied, “Oh, I work for the skate shop sometimes, and occasionally I help out with skating classes, but I usually just stay at home with the kids, since, uh, you know, my wife works in the hospital.”

She blinked, opened her mouth, closed it, and blinked again. She took a slow sip of her coffee trying to think about how she was going to respond to _that_. Scott so rarely mentioned his wife when he talked or texted her that Tessa practically thought that they were divorced.

She put the cup down, pursed her lips into a thin smile, and responded, nice as ever, “That’s nice.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly, and oh crap, could he still read her like a book? Tessa almost didn’t want to know. She changed the topic.

“Crazy to think that we were in a completely different country around this time twenty years ago, huh?”

The delivery was awkward, and they both knew it. The radio stopped, and the pop song was replaced by Elton John’s _Your Song_. Scott nodded along to the lyrics, pausing to open his mouth and change the topic of conversation once again.

“Speaking of this, didn’t you and Sam go to New York to see this?”

For a second, she had almost no idea what he was talking about, and asked, “Elton John? No, I don’t think we did.” She took another sip of her coffee.

“No, _Moulin Rouge_.” He replied, and she almost choked.

“Yes, the stage play.”

Scott sighed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you. I really wanted to, but I was with her.”

His wife.

“It’s ok.” She told him. “You would’ve loved it, though. It was beautiful. And _El Tango De Roxanne_ was great.” She smiled at the memory of watching the red lights illuminate Christian as he walked across the stage, while Satine made her way towards the Duke of Monroth. The ensemble danced an angry yet passionate tango, while Harold Zidler watched from the edge of the stage.

That was probably her favorite part of the whole show. The dancing, the lights, the emotions… she’d thought that it was fantastic.

“Not as good as the movie, though?” Scott asked, before taking a sip from his cup.

“Well, I guess not, but it was still really, _really_ good.”

He smiled, “That’s good. I’m glad you got to experience that.” He told her, and she thought those words were coming out of his mouth almost twenty years too late. On that cold November night in New York, he never texted or called her, or ever said anything to her afterwards. She wished he did.

“I think ours was pretty good, too.” He added, pushing his cup away. “I mean, I like to think that after twenty years it still holds up.” He shrugged, and she nodded. She loved that program; always had and always will, probably.

“I miss it.” She said quietly. It could just be the fact that it was their twentieth anniversary of winning Olympic gold on the twentieth day of the second month of the twentieth year of their partnership, but she was feeling nostalgic. She really did miss that day.

“Me too,” He said, and she could tell that there was a hint of sadness in his voice. She reached across the table and took his hand, and they stayed there for a few seconds, before Scott commented, “It almost feels like we should be hugging the life out of each other right now, eh?”

She laughed. Their hugs _were_ very special; they both knew that.

“It kind of hurts to know that we’re never going to be able to skate like that again,” She said, and he nodded.

“We got to go to the Olympics _three_ times, Tessa.” Scott said. “I don’t think we should be hurt by that, I think we should be proud of ourselves.”

She nodded, looking down at her now-empty coffee cup. His was empty, too.

Tessa sighed, pushing her cup away. The waitress came by again, taking their cups and handing Scott the bill. He looked at it, and slipped his credit card inside. The waitress took it, and the duo waited in silence.

It was clear that neither one knew what to say. After all, what _was_ there to say? Not a lot, in Tessa’s opinion. Everything had already been said.

The waitress returned, and Scott took his card and put it back into his wallet. They both stood up at the same time, and zipped up their coats.

The bell tinkled as the door opened, announcing their department to the waitress. The cold air hit them as the door closed and they stood outside on the sidewalk.

“Hug?” He asked, and she nodded, moving towards him and melting into his embrace. Their fluffy coats made the hug even better, she realized, but they couldn’t tell if their heartbeats had synced up or not.

They would, obviously, but they wouldn’t know.

The hug seemed to last forever, although she knew it really didn’t. She could hear Scott breathing softly in her ear, and she smiled slightly. Would they ever get to do this again, alone? She wasn’t sure.

“Come what may, right, Virtch?” He whispered, and she nodded.

“Come what may.”

Their hug ended, and they stood there awkwardly, not really sure if they should say something or not.

“Watch the program today, okay?” He told her. “I know you don’t like to rewatch it, but please, watch it today. For us. Be proud of what we did, please?”

She nodded, suddenly feeling tears prick in her eye. From the cold or her emotions, she wasn’t sure.

“I will.” She told him. “Thank you… for this.” She gestured towards the diner, smiling sadly. “Call me one day, please.”

“I will.” He promised her, before waving goodbye and turning towards his car. She watched as he got in, reversed, and began to drive away.

Tessa breathed in deeply. This wasn’t a goodbye, it was simply a see you later. Maybe one day, they’d still watch Jeopardy together every night.

As she walked back to her car, she decided that she _would_ watch their program later. For him. They’d both changed, but their love of that program, and skating and dancing in general, hadn’t.

And she was beyond grateful for that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Tessa’s quote that I included in the beginning. The lyrics are from “She Used to Be Mine” by Sara Bareilles. (Also, obviously they’re not 60 years old in this, but I wanted to make it the twenty year anniversary, sooo... sorry.)


End file.
